Chapter Ten
Once More Unto the Breach
Hours later Abby Sciuto steps out of her coffin room and turns to her roommate who lays upon the black leather sofa, watching television. "Wanna go out?"
She's been invited to an NCIS party and definitely doesn't want to go, but neither does she want to stay home, preferring to go out for a night on the town rather than submit herself to answering the insane invitation. She's had a full day of Forensics, and though it's her greatest love, even over 'Caf-Pow!', she needs to get out and she doesn't want to go alone.
"Sure. Where to?" Sammy doesn't even glance at the clock; for two women seemingly hard-wired for spontaneity, such an act would be too plebian, so neither of them know nor care that it's nearing 2300.
"Little place I heard of, Shangri-La, though for some weird reason they misspell it with an 'a' just because it sounds that way." She won't tell Sammy that it was a Crime Scene, a call on her cell phone confirmed, though she couldn't hear the voice on the other end, that the club's reopened after the CS Unit finished their work on the dance floor. After a day of working blind she wants to see it and the relation of every piece of evidence to the whole. There are several other reasons for going there; she hasn't seen every club in the city and not for lack of trying, and Gibbs didn't actually say she couldn't visit it. She just hadn't mentioned it.
"Great!" Sammy virtually leaps from the couch, landing on her bare feet on the carpet as though she were a gymnast executing a dismount from the parallel bars. Sammy Sky's very existence is virtually a perennial party, her joie de vivre beyond legendary to her friends, so this level of enthusiasm is downright mundane.
"Get dressed."
"How?" The blonde woman starts opening her light blue pajamas.
"Nouveau slutty," Abby decides with an expressive smile.
"Cool," Sammy pulls the top from her shoulders as she heads for the coffin room.
"Bring ear plugs."
This halts her in mid-stride and she turns, trying to decipher the advice.
xxx
Sammy's choice of Nouveau slutty is a deeply plunging V scarlet mini-dress that, though Abby wouldn't have credited it on anyone else, compliments her pixie length pale blonde hair and complexion and that valiantly tries – and utterly fails – to be long enough down her thighs to be decent while revealing entirely too much of the well endowed young woman's cleavage. She sits with her equally ebullient friend at a two foot wide black table in a black room surrounded by black garbed dancing revelers who strive to shake off various limbs and valiantly strains to work out what Abby, clad in her Goth-est black outfit with equally daring neckline, is saying. She's grateful for the earplug advice, for even through them the noise of the band across the long room is akin to an auditory mugging.
'Saying' is somewhat generous, for even if they weren't protected by ear plugs from the audio pummeling by heavyweight loudspeakers, Abby doesn't even try to shout, using instead a modified version of Sign to communicate her meaning. Since Sammy doesn't have even a rudimentary knowledge of the language, Abby limits herself to expressive gestures and the soon-to-be physician responds with a stylus on the lighted screen of her Ipaq.
The small screen is actually the best source of light in the black room, the rest of the half-hearted attempts at illumination coming from the single candle at each small table surrounding the dance floor. The candles run the length of the bar and the dim spotlights that hang from the black ceiling partially illuminate occasional small points eight inches wide on the dance floor.
'Tell me again why we're here?" Sammy writes on her lighted pad, illustrating the appeal with begging artwork. Abby responds with flourishing gestures Sammy interprets have something to do with 'fun'. Sammy decides not to write that she'd have more fun at 'Taiwan On'. At least there, if she's going to be tied down and perhaps spanked, the limit of her acceptance of pain, it's because she's asked to be. She normally keeps certain sides of her life private and discreet - only Agent Gibbs knows she's a member - but after tonight she resolves to introduce Abby to that club at her first opportunity.
x
Actually, Abby has other reasons for being here where liquor flows like water and the noise batters thought right out of her brain, but its something she can't communicate to Sammy. She has enough trouble believing it herself.
Just before she'd left NCIS Headquarters this evening, she'd run into Tony DiNozzo who'd given her the most appalling, shocking and incredible news. Tim McGee, the ultimate Webelos and as much a rock in her world as Gibbs - though she'd never tell Gibbs - is going to be a father.
Now normally that would be a Cause Celeb, except that he and Siobhan got married just last month, Saint Patrick's Day, March 17 to be exact, and are going to be parents in October!
This news ranks as as much of a shock as when she'd first learned McGee had popped the question, but this is nowhere nearly as pleasant.
Siobhan, recovering from a series of merciless assaults inflicted during her captivity in the first days of January, had declared she was going to Ireland for a sabbatical but had changed her mind and instead hid out in Tim's apartment while her wounds healed. It's a secret known only to their closest friends.
But it's obvious he didn't share with them the secret of what he'd done while the helpless and wounded woman was hiding out in his apartment!
Abby hopes she doesn't see Tim while in the mood she's in right now; the child will grow up half an orphan.
x
"WE'RE GONNA TAKE A LITTLE BREAK NOW," thunders through the room hard enough to nearly shake some fixtures loose. Abby thinks the candle on their small table cringed and almost went out.
'Thank GOD!' Sammy mouths emphatically, pulling the earplugs from her ears with a sigh of immense relief. For a moment, as her ears recover, she's not entirely sure she isn't already deaf until Abby speaks.
"What's wrong?" Abby grin, thrusting away the anger that'd been brewing in her. This music may be a bit louder than she's used to but it's not bad.
"Oh, my virgin ears," Sammy says, covering them protectively until she's sure the sensitive instruments have recovered and she can address her smiling friend. "Tomorrow we're going to 'Taiwan On'." Time to finally broach the subject, though it feels like revenge.
"I tried to get in there once, about a year ago," she says, giving way to more pleasant thoughts to short-circuit her outrage lest her impish friend get the story out of her. "It's Invitation Only. You've gotta be a member."
"I'm a member. I'm inviting you."
"Really?" She hadn't thought of her petite friend would frequent such a club.
"Really." 'And when I get you there…' Sammy promises herself. She's strictly Sub, but for this occasion she'd Switch, if only to– "CHERRY!" she cries and leaps from her seat so quickly Abby nearly jumps out of hers. She grabs a red haired woman passing on the way to the corner rest rooms.
"Sammy! Hey! What're you doing here?" the buxom woman, who's about as tall as Abby, exclaims as they hug.
"I'm here with my friend. Let me introduce you." Sammy half-turns in the embrace toward Abby, "Cherry, this is Abby. Abby Sciuto, this is my bestest friend in DC, Cherry Kane."
"Good to meet you," Abby says, liberated by the enthusiasm and hugging the woman after Sammy clears the way.
"You too," Cherry says when they draw back.
x
"Cherry's an advocate with Crossroads, that's where we met. It's DC's foremost LGBTS Advocacy Group."
"S?" Abby is familiar with the Lesbian Gay Bi-Sexual Transgender movement, Sammy's in the B group, but the extra letter's supposed to be Q for Questioning.
"Straight," Cherry answers and Abby realizes the answer had been fairly obvious. "We try to keep the discussion open; can't do that without all sides being on board."
"Amen. How's that going for you?"
"'Bout as well as you'd expect."
"Bummer."
"Yeah." Cherry turns to Sammy. "Didn't know this was your thing."
Sammy cocks her thumb over her shoulder at Abby with a grin. "She made me come. I'm getting her back tomorrow, though; she'll be my partner at Taiwan On."
"Ah. Partner. Sorry. I didn't know." She moves an inch from Sammy, evidently assuming she's being thought of as 'poaching'. "I thought after Karen–"
"Oh!" Abby exclaims, "no, not that, not at all, no, I'm–" She could do without Sammy giggling over her too-obvious distress. "I'm definitely S."
"Don't let her fool you," Sammy counters. "We're so definitely living together."
Cherry looks from one to the other, confusion bright on her face.
"Darn it, Sammy!"
"No, seriously," Sammy says to her friend, her grin not quite under control. "After Karen got killed I couldn't live at my old place anymore. Abby was nice enough to take me in until I could save up enough for a couple months rent and security. She's cool. 'S', but cool."
"Okay," Cherry says, grateful to catch up.
It's clear from Kane's expression that she doesn't intend to ask any questions, something Abby is grateful for.
x
"OH – wait!" Sammy exclaims, turning to Abby. "I forgot, I have something for you." Abby's somewhat apprehensive about what this could be. "No, seriously, I picked something up for you the other day and it's been sitting in my purse ever since." She opens the scarlet bag and starts rummaging about in it. Between the dim light and the depth of the bag, it's a daunting task, so Cherry reaches over to the nearest table and picks up its glass enclosed candle, holding it over the bag. "Thanks." She searches further, finally pushes enough things to the side to reach the bottom. "Here it is."
Abby sees through the deception so easily. It's not like the item had been sitting in the bottom of this bag which matches Sammy's dress; more like she had some plan that now won't be voiced.
Cherry replaces the candle when Sammy pulls out something so small her hand obscures it and she hands it to Abby, who turns the small metal in her hand. It's rectangular, with a clutch pin in the back, and on the inch long metal rectangle she can make out the words 'STRAIGHT' and, in smaller letters under it, 'but not narrow'.
"Thanks."
"I figured you'd like it. It'll save on confusion when we do get to "Taiwan On'."
Now the scheme is clear. "Love it." Abby puts it on just at the edge of her black leather neckline. Away from candlelight it can't be read at all, appearing just a light colored metal rectangle over the black.
"Say, listen," Cherry says, "if you're not completely set on 'Taiwan On', why not come to 'Sodom and Gomorrah' tomorrow? We're gonna have a wicked time there, open all night. You'll have a blast." She slips an invitation coupon out of her back pocket and hands it to Sammy."
"Thanks," she squints to make out the picture and words in the darkness. "Maybe we will." She glances at Abby "Getting tied up can get a bit old if I'm not getting raped too."
She giggles delightedly at Abby's stunned expression.
x
"Look," Cherry says, "can we walk and talk? I was just heading for the–"
"Oh!" Abby exclaims, "sure." She gathers her black drawstring bag from the table and the trio continues on to the corner of the huge room. There's already one woman waiting outside the door; but she exchanges places with a not quite dressed woman as they reach the door, leaving the trio alone.
"Abby and I used to work together at NCIS at the Navy Yard," Sammy explains to her friend while they wait.
"Oh, yeah, the Medical Examiner thingy."
"Yeah."
"Well, you've always been a cut-up."
Both woman groan.
"SO!" Abby says sharply, determined to clear the air of that horrible quip, "how go things with your Advocacy group?"
"Not well. Marriage may be legal but when you come down to it that's really the first step. Insurance, taxes, and the minute you cross into Virginia or Maryland you're not legal anymore. I feel like I spend more time on the Hill than some politicians and get less done than any of them, which is pretty pathetic." There's undisguised bitterness in Cherry's voice.
"We're muddled down with bills over marriage on the Federal level - I should live that long - and AIDS and education and medical coverage and that damned 'Don't ask don't tell', and every time it looks like we might actually get something on the floor it gets tagged with riders about corn and highways, or simply killed because no one anywhere wants to support it because there are no gays or lesbians in the good old U.S. of A, at least so the good old South says. Every time we try to get a Right or make a point someone scuttles it, and people I know are supporters or should be in the forefront are so deep in the closet it's pretty much a waste of time even talking to them."
"Never been in the closet myself," Sammy says, mostly to cool Cherry's fire.
"I know," Abby concurs. Sammy had been open with her from her second day at NCIS. She doesn't involve Abby in her activities, knowing she's very Straight, but her position has always been very firm; she is who she is and it's nobody's damn business what guy or girl she dates.
"No," Sammy reconsiders a moment later, "I take that back. I was in the closet once."
"Hey?"
She grins, giving Cherry a fiery look. "You haven't lived until you've been in a five by five closet with another girl and two guys, all bi."
xx
The ladies' room – the sign says 'Bitches' to distinguish it from 'Bastards' – is eye-searing, not from any flaw but from the intense red light that suffuses it, turning everything slightly varying shades of bright scarlet. "Whoa," Abby exclaims, for while the exposed flesh on their faces and bodies turn bright red and the light shines off the leather accents of her Goth dress, Sammy's scarlet mini-dress glows brightly enough to hurt eyes, gleaming under the Kryptonian sun.
"Kind of sexy, hon," Cherry says.
"You too," Sammy says appreciatively, suspecting her friend is unaware that under the light her mane of red hair glows.
Abby, slightly discomforted by the tones underscoring the women's voices, turns toward the room's only enclosed stall. "Well, I see how this place treats its 'bitches'," she says sharply. The chamber is easily big enough for three stalls, but only one seems to have ever been considered. That and the sink in the far right corner constitute the full amenities offered by the alleged Utopia.
"You can go first," Cherry offers, her eyes flickering for an instant to Sammy's décolletage, the red flushed flesh not obscured by the plunging V. Sammy, though standing 5-2 in bare feet, can share bras with Abby.
Abby's not about to decline the offer, for she read in the woman's eyes that Cherry is considering Sammy's story about the closet, but before she gets the door closed she sees the pair draw together in a hug and doesn't miss the discreet flash of tongue that leads the kiss.
x
Abby, after finishing – does everything in this place, even the flushing, have to be deafeningly loud? – unlocks the door with an especially sharp snap. But when she opens the portal the pair await her as patient and sedate as though they had never considered doing what she'd heard. "Next," she calls unnecessarily, her smile barely contained as she turns toward the sink – and freezes.
Cherry, a step closer, also stops and wonders why Abby stands, one hand on the door, staring at the fixture in the right corner. "Abby?" She's not entirely sure this isn't uncommon behavior for the Goth woman.
Abby doesn't look at her, she instead crosses the room and kneels on one knee beside the sink, pulls open the drawstrings of her black bag, roots about in it and pulls out a specimen swab. The long plastic wand is topped with a cotton tip which is itself covered by a plastic device, the top of which Abby pops up. She pushes the rod, exposing the cotton and puts it to the side of the sink, reverse twisting it to gather particles of a dried vertical smear onto the cotton.
Ignoring the women - Cherry's bewildered while Sammy looks on in barely contained anticipation - Abby pulls a small bottle from her purse, twists it open to expose a droplet dispenser and drips two drops of clear liquid onto the cotton.
The reaction is immediate. The dark stain turns bright scarlet under the intense red light. She then draws the stained cotton back into the protective plastic cover and snaps it closed, twists the bottle closed and puts them back in her bag. Then she pulls out a fresh swab stick, extends it and collects another sample.
x
"Abby," Sammy says as her friend works, "sometimes I may try to freak you out but you are freaking me out. Who carries a Forensic kit in her purse?"
Abby looks up with a self-satisfied smile. "I do." She puts the second swab into her bag, draws it closed.
"What is that?" Cherry asks, not sure if she'd rather be in Nebraska.
"Blood."
"You recognized blood in this light?" She can't be sure about the color of anything, and she's less comfortable with how well Sammy takes this in stride.
"About a day old," Abby assures her, having absolutely no doubt about the freshness, or the lack thereof.
"Why are you collecting blood in a ladies room?"
Though Abby answers the appalled woman's question, it's Sammy she looks at. "Because if I'm right, Gibbs' case just went south."